Free Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant Page A

chest. The voyage had been too peaceful; it was inevitable that things would start going wrong. But oh, she had hoped that just this once, inevitability could be staved off by the need for a peaceful trip.
    “Is this about Robert Warwick?” she asked, unable to keep the hope out of her voice. Maybe her wayward crewman had been found sleeping off a bender in one of the unoccupied cabins, and she would just need to provide some stern discipline. Actually, that would be a best-case scenario. She’d had crewmembers searching the decks until almost three in the morning, and they had found no sign of the man. It was unnerving. The Atargatis was a big ship, but it was still just a ship. It shouldn’t have been possible for someone to disappear that completely without going overboard, and while there were sharks in these waters, she found it difficult to accept that a human being, even one who had somehow managed to fall in and drown, could vanish without a trace. The currents weren’t strong enough where they were anchored, and the seas had been calm since they arrived.
    “No, Captain,” said the man. “One of the mermaids is missing.”
    Jovanie blinked at him, trying to force those words to make sense. There were no mermaids. This was a trip about finding mermaids, and everyone aboard knew that they were going to fail. They might find some “evidence,” and they might find the women in costume, but—
    The women in costume. “Do you mean one of the performers?” she asked.
    The crewman nodded. “Yes. They were doing their morning exercises off the rear deck—their contract apparently specifies that they have access to the open water whenever the ship is not in motion—and one of their people didn’t resurface.”
    Oh, God. Captain Jovanie Seghers jerked to her feet so quickly that her chair went over backward, landing on the cabin floor with a clatter. “Notify the divers. I want bodies in the water in five minutes. We need to find that woman.”
    “Aye-aye, Captain,” said the crewman, and was gone, running back down the deck. He knew as well as she did that sending divers in was an empty gesture; if the woman had been missing long enough for her fellow performers to raise the alarm, she was surely lost. But if they could bring the body back, her friends might at least have some closure.
    Accidents can happen at sea. Accidents will happen at sea, as inevitable as the waves and the weather. All that could be changed was how people reacted to them, and what they did to prevent specific accidents from happening again.
    The interns and early-rising scientists who were already out on the deck watched in confusion as the crew began to mobilize. More people than most of them had realized were on the Atargatis had already run toward the rear of the boat, and it seemed like the rush was never-ending. “Should I be concerned?” asked Alexandra, glancing toward Anne and Kevin, who had just arrived from the mess.
    Anne was back to her usual focus group-tested and approved self, somehow having managed to put on a full face of perfect makeup using her reflection on the side of a coffee pot. This skill, among others, was why she was Imagine’s most popular convention correspondent. She had once fixed her lipstick in the shine off a Wolverine cosplayer’s claws. “I don’t know,” she said, watching another man push past. She itched to go after them, but was all too aware of the clause in her contract that forbade her to interfere with the crew. If there was one thing Anne did not want, it was to be confined to quarters for the rest of the voyage. Her job would surely be one of the casualties of that particular punishment.
    Kevin, who was less concerned with his continuing employment with Imagine, and—more importantly—much more of a morning person, frowned. “They’re all heading for the back of the ship,” he said. “I hope nothing went wrong with the Blue Seas girls.”
    “You mean the professional mermaids